Safe Haven
by xcoloursandpromises
Summary: "She moves forward, the hem of her hakama whispering condolences against the floorboards." They save each other. It's what they've always done. Shunsui/Nanao


**Disclaimer**: I don't own Bleach!

**A/N:** My first attempt at a Shunsui/Nanao fic. I've been drowning myself in these two for the past week, and I've been wanting to do something with them for a while. The plot bunnies, however, were reluctant to come, so I decided to do snippets. Because when in doubt, that's what I do. I do snippets.

* * *

_in your tears and in your blood,_

_in your fire and in your flood,_

_I heard you laugh, I heard you sing,_

_"I wouldn't change a single thing."_

_the wheels just keep on turning,_

_the drummers begin to drum,_

_I don't know which way I'm going,_

_I don't know what I've become._

_for you, I'd wait 'til kingdom come,_

_until my days, my days are done._

_say you'll come and set me free,_

_just say you'll wait, _

_you'll wait for me_. – coldplay, til kingdom come

* * *

**_Safe Haven_**

She doesn't really remember much. Searing pain through her head, coppery taste coating her mouth. A cry and a gasp, words falling through her tiny fingers like sand.

She remembers a muted cherry-blossom pink coming through the haze of darkness, her cold body cradled in warm arms. She remembers blood and ash, and eyes too kind for a world like this.

She wakes up in the Fourth. There are people arguing very very loudly outside her room, and she catches phrases like "too young" and "not enough", and something in her chest flutters. It's the same story she's heard before – not strong enough, not quick enough, not old enough. Not good enough, they might as well say, even though she knows they never will.

She slips in and out of consciousness, the arguing voices following her, until the door opens and a woman walks inside. She looks agitated and familiar, eyes burning bright like stars behind her glasses.

"Don't you ever wander off like that again, kid," she hisses. Something flickers inside her eyes, looks a bit like fear.

"I'm sorry, Vice Captain Yadomaru," she murmurs. Lisa lets out a breathy chuckle. A shadow shifts by the door.

Nanao's gaze swings at the movement, trying to catch a glimpse, but her vision swims and all she catches is the edge of a pink haori before everything fades to black.

* * *

She hears things – bad things, sad things, murmured rumors from other officers.

_She's not coming back._

They don't say who _she_ is out loud, but Nanao knows. She might be young, but she's far from stupid.

She doesn't really know what happened, that night – she would say they're ghosts, now, those captains and vice captains, but they're not even that. It's like they never existed, not at all. She would say they're dead, but even dead people are talked about. You can say a dead person's name.

No one says their names, not anymore, but Lisa's is whispered by the walls as she walks by.

Nanao finds him in the office he used to share with the Vice Captain, one night after work hours, near-unconscious at his desk. Bottles litter the area where there should be paperwork, and his eyes are so sad she's nearly floored.

She approaches him cautiously – she's not a stranger to drunk men, growing up in the more distasteful areas of Rukongai, and although her captain has always been kind, she's never seen him like this. She doesn't know what grief and liquor does to him, doesn't know if she really wants to.

"Captain?" she calls hesitantly, her voice so small in the cavernous room. "Captain, are you alright?"

His eyes seem to focus at the sound of her feeble voice, and they're so sad, so gray. Something throbs in her chest. "Nanao-chan? Nanao-chan, what are you doing here?"

He doesn't sound reprimanding, not at all. He just sounds tired, tired and a bit drunk.

She doesn't say anything. She merely crosses the room over to him, and she can tell, can't she? She can see the sadness and the pain and the guilt in his eyes.

It had never occurred to her that maybe someone as strong as a captain needed saving, sometimes – that maybe someone could be rescued from something as simple as _sadness_, but she gives it a shot, reaching to the tips of her toes to take the empty sake bottles and put them near the wastebin on the other side of the room.

He watches quietly, watches this tiny slip of a girl take on a role she shouldn't have to.

When she's all done, her violet eyes swing up to meet his, blazing and determined and just a bit upset. His chest hurts, at the thought of upsetting this little girl more, when he already broke his promise to her, when he already failed Lisa, when –

"I miss her, too."

He blinks at the sound of her voice, small but strong and impossibly firm. There's something in her eyes, centuries older than the body she's trapped in. It only lasts for a moment, but he sees it – then the moment passes, and she's just a girl again.

"I'm sorry, Nanao-chan."

Her eyes harden and she doesn't want his apologies, he knows, but she'll never say something like that out loud, not to him. She turns, says something about going to bed, and he watches her go.

She doesn't have to speak, for him to hear the words she left behind in the office.

_It's okay._

* * *

She is a footnote in the years after, as the pain scabs and scars and heals, and she focuses on her studies, climbing up the ranks.

They still talk, sometimes, but it's not like the days she used to toddle into his office after a nightmare or on the first of the month to read – she's not a child, and he no longer tries to rectify his shortcomings by attempting to mould into a role as her mentor.

Still, he's aware of her consistency and her stability, the loyalty she has for his division. She never requests a transfer, despite her obvious annoyance with the biweekly drinking parties and the backlog of paperwork, and she never causes a ruckus.

She's stable and dependable, and despite her age, one of the most capable officers at the Eighth. She claims the third seat one year before her features have even matured, looking no older than a human fifteen.

It's not until late in the summer of that year that they speak again – he, his third lieutenant of the year, and his petite third seat are on a group mission to take care of a routine hollow infestation outside the Third District.

Things go well, until suddenly, they go very, very wrong. His vice captain is too slow on the uptake regarding one of the hollows, and her terrified shriek makes Shunsui turn around – just in time to see a large, winged hollow converge on Nanao, who'd since decided that the best thing she could use to shield her superior officer was her _own body_.

He watches in horror as the thing's mouth clamps around her midsection, trapping one of her arms and causing blood to gush out. His vice captain shrieks, but Nanao – quiet, brave Nanao – raises her tantō with little more than a whimper. She slashes through flesh and bone and at such close range, the hollow doesn't stand a chance. It disintegrates and Shunsui is already there, catching her as she falls.

His vice captain finally shakes herself out of her stupor and moves to take care of the rest of the pack.

Nanao's breath is shallow as he leans over her, kidō lighting up his hand. He's not nearly skilled enough to close everything up, but he knows enough to get her stable until they can get back to the Fourth for proper treatment.

He watches her flutter in and out of consciousness, and thinks of a night, so long ago now – he thinks of stars and bones, twenty-two dead officers whose names he can't remember, now, and a little girl caught in the bramble, barely breathing but still alive.

It's times like these he remembers how so very young she is.

* * *

After that incident, the slightly timid woman who had been his vice resigns. She'd tried her best, Shunsui knows, but they both know she's not cut out for the job.

He knows exactly who is.

They have started talking again, and with startling frequency – he'd stayed with her until she'd threatened him with bodily harm at the Fourth, impressing upon him the simple truth that she was no longer a child and didn't require his constant supervision.

He'd smiled, sadly – he'd known, and still does. She is young but she is not a girl; she's a woman, now, fearless and frightening all at once, and when she initially tries to decline the promotion he gives her, he knows he's made the right choice.

The days bleed into weeks, then months, and eventually years. She's a bit of a workaholic, and a better match than previous vice captains. She is good for the division, he knows, when he spies her up late doing the backlog or teaching younger recruits the efficiencies of kidō.

He might have a reputation for being friendly, but where he is laid back and a bit hands-off when it comes to training, she is anything but, all sharp lines and smooth correction, stern voice and hidden affection.

She cares as much as he does, he knows. The new recruits might not see it, might even hate her for the long hours and seemingly endless work, but they learn in time. She is a mother lion, and the division is composed of her cubs, even with the older recruits. She protects and defends and he can only stand back and watch as she roars.

She drags the Eighth out of the wreckage Lisa had left behind when she disappeared, and it takes him a while to realize he's been dragged out, too. Where there had been nothing but ruin and the faint dark cloud of a memory, there is now the potential for sunlight.

Yes, Shunsui thinks, lying back on the Eighth's rooftop. Nanao's shadow stretches over him, her voice stern as she reprimands him for napping in the middle of a workday.

Yes, he thinks. He'd made the right decision.

* * *

It occurs to her, later, just how much trouble she's in.

The execution's been muddled, the ryoka are attacking, and as far as she can tell, Soul Society is on the precipice of what can only be described as a civil war.

She knows she shouldn't, that it goes against every grain in her body that's been geared to protect the cause, the _sanctity_ of the Gotei 13.

Her job as a vice captain was to support her captain at all times — to protect her part for the good of the whole. It's different, though – the waters are muddy, now, and there's a choice to make.

It's not hard to decide, really. And that should scare her, right, at least a little? The fact that it's so easy – too easy to choose, as she plunges down the cliff after Kyoraku and Ukitake, as she makes the decision to step forward and face the Captain-Commander himself.

The world goes a bit blurry around the edges, after that, Yamamoto's reiatsu so heavy and cloying it's like she's drowning in molasses. She feels like she's about to fly apart, _clinging_ to the skin of her body and then – then –

Then, strong arms around her waist, kind eyes and apologies whispering through the air.

Her captain lowers her to the ground, and he murmurs something in her ear. She can't hear over the blood rushing in her head, but she savors the rich honey of his voice, the sweet assurance and the unspoken promises.

She wants to say something, maybe a thank you, but the words never seem to come fast enough with him.

* * *

She's there when he comes back from the war.

She'd been Soul Society's pillar, while the captains and vice captains were away – a woman whose administrative capabilities far outclassed any other lieutenant in the Gotei 13, a soldier who was strong enough to hold the home front together. She'd defended while her captain fought, watching from monitors and worrying until her lips, riddled with teeth marks, bled.

She is there when the battle ends, there to see him through. His wounds aren't as severe as some others, and he's still well enough to make silly and sordid jokes upon her arrival.

She allows him to take her through the motions until night descends on Soul Society, until his liquor-induced dreams become riddled with nightmares – lonely nightmares of a wolf and a man, and a lost girl whose promises he couldn't keep.

She stays in his guest room, because really, neither of them can stand to be apart for very long, not when their wounds are still rubbed so raw. She comes to him when his reiatsu flares, is there to soothe him when the silence gets too loud.

She curls up beside him while he shakes off the remains of his nightmare, closer than she's ever allowed herself to get. She doesn't know what he dreams about – if it's the war or something bigger, something older, and decides she doesn't quite mind if he never tells her.

Some stories shouldn't be told. She knows that.

His hand comes to rest at the curve of her waist, content to hold. There are no silly quips or remarks, here, just the memory of the lonely, the fleeting wish that he won't become the man he'd killed a day ago.

They stay until the dawn filters in, flooding the floors in gold.

* * *

He thinks he's doing her a favor by letting her go, that last time.

_the next war comes without warning and he is thrust into the hex and she is almost pulled out of it – but fate is a fickle thing and theirs had been entwined since the very beginning, maybe even before that_

Soul Society is shattered on a blood-soaked ground, the sky stained red. The world is reduced to two when she stares at him, the weight of grief and responsibility near to crushing on his shoulders.

_she'd made herself a promise, the day he saved her life_

They make him Captain-Commander, and she can see it, can't she, even when his back is turned. The bitter, burning thing he used for a smile, a poor parody of the grin she used to love so much.

_she was never the type to get something and not give back, and when he saves her, again and again and again, she takes the incentive to rescue him right back_

He tries to leave her behind, uses every excuse to get her to stay at the Eighth.

_he still doesn't get it, still can't fathom the fact that she'd follow him to the edge of every world, if he only asked_

She moves forward, the hem of her hakama whispering condolences against the floorboards. She walks until she is but a breath away, something inside her swelling and shattering before coming back to life.

_she would follow him into any battle; he should know that_

"I'm coming with you," she says, and it's not up for negotiation.

He laughs, breathless and sad, but there's some undertone of selfish relief that he can taste on his teeth.

"I had a feeling you'd say that."

He thought he'd been doing her a favor by letting her go – he never stopped to think that maybe he wasn't the only one with the desire to protect.

That maybe she wasn't the only one in need of saving.

* * *

**A/N:** Eek, how'd I do? It's my first time with these two; please let me know if I did them justice, because I'd love to do more later! Thank you for reading, and I'd appreciate any and all feedback.


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